Water assemblages in hydrosocial territories

Connecting place, space, and time through the cultural-material signification of water in coastal Peru

Bibliographic Data

ID8941879
AuthorsLuis Reyes Escate (0000-0001-5102-9047, National University of San Marcos, corresponding author), Jaime Hoogesteger (0000-0002-6784-0552, Wageningen University & Research), R Boelens (0000-0002-8412-3109, Wageningen University & Research)
Year2022
Volume135
Pages61-70
Publication date2022-08-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeoforum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.07.005
OpenAlexW4289687538
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited60

This article analyzes how smallholders of Subtanjalla, in coastal Peru, conceive irrigation water as a central element and carrier of hydrosocial relations and territories. We base our analysis on an exploration of the local notions of agua nueva and yocle. These two notions bind together time, space, nature and culture into specific understandings of territorial connections and reciprocities. Through these understandings water is much more than H2O. Instead of just representing an economic good or a material input for irrigated agriculture water is seen as a binding element that bridges and brings together the Andean world with that of Subtanjalla in the Peruvian coast. Water is, from this perspective, a lively and always in-the-making composition of humans, non-humans, and more-than-humans in which there is no clear distinction between nature and culture, past and present, object and subject. We argue that water as an assemblage opens up now lines of inquiry into hydrosocial territories and relations across time and space through the departure of a fundamentally relational understandings of water, its use and governance

Archaeology · Assemblage (archaeology · Element (criminal law · Environmental ethics · Geography · Object (grammar · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Subject (documents · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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Open DOIOpen Access